Some Scientists Worry That Sophisticated Center Will Distort Children's Views of Science

According to an ABC News poll, 60 percent of Americans believe God created the world in six days. In Petersburg, Ky., this weekend, a creation museum is opening that depicts a story far from what you may have learned in science class.

Exhibits at almost every natural history museum teach that dinosaurs are millions of years old, and that they died out long before human beings existed. But at the Creation Museum, they say God created dinosaurs and humans at the same time.

The Creation Museum, designed by the same man behind some of the attractions at Universal Studios in Florida, is a $27 million, high-tech sensory experience with animatronic dinosaurs and a movie theater with seats that shake.

The museum is intended to convince visitors that evolution is wrong and that the biblical story of life on earth from Adam and Eve to Noah's ark is scientifically verifiable.

The museum depicts Adam living with animals, including a dinosaur.

Ken Ham, the president of Answers in Genesis, the group that is funding the museum, says that only "secular scientists" would maintain that the first humans never lived with dinosaurs.

"[Scientists] can say that, but what's their evidence?" Ham says, insisting that "All land animals were made on day six."

Mainstream scientists worry that because the museum is so technically sophisticated, it could be effective in giving children a distorted view of science.

"That they'll show up in classrooms and say, 'Gee, Mrs. Brown, I went to this spiffy museum last summer and they say that everything you're teaching me is a lie,'" said Eugenie Scott, the executive director of the National Center for Science Education.

Ham believes that's what should happen.

"And I say, great. Amen. That's what this place is all about," he said. "It's meant to challenge people."

The stakes are high. The museum argues that evolution jeopardizes people's belief in the Bible and leads to social ills like pornography and abortion.

"In an evolutionary world view, why should you have things like absolute morality? Why would it be wrong to kill someone?" said Jason Lisle, of Answers in Genesis. "I'm not saying that evolutionists aren't moral. I'm saying they have no reason to be moral."

Artist Laura Spence works painting next to a mechanical Utahraptor 16 May 2007 at The Creation Museum in Petersburg, Ken. Designed by a former Universal Studios exhibit director, this state-of-the-art 60,000 square foot museum will demonstrate the Bible's authority in all matters including science is scheduled to open to the public this weekend. The museum is a fully engaging, sensory experience with murals and realistic scenery, computer-generated visual effects, over fifty exotic animals, life-sized people and dinosaur animatronics, and a special-effects theater complete with misty sea breezes and rumbling seats.

Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he hold to as being certain from reason and experience. Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn. The shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of faith think our sacred writers held such opinions, and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men. If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods and on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason? Reckless and incompetent expounders of Holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books. For then, to defend their utterly foolish and obviously untrue statements, they will try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from memory many passages which they think support their position, although they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertion. [1 Timothy 1.7]

Creationism and the word science don’t belong in the same sentence. Creationism is biblical propaganda wrapping itself in the mantle of science seeking to deceive the scientifically illiterate. Pretty much the same as global warming.

4
posted on 05/26/2007 9:32:44 AM PDT
by saganite
(Billions and billions and billions----and that's just the NASA budget!)

I am not a Darwinist, since I think the scientific difficulties of the Theory of General Evolution render it astronomically improbable. But I’m not a literalist creationist, either.

Still, I doubt whether this museum can do much harm, indeed no more harm than all those other museums which teach that Darwinism is the eternal truth that cannot be questioned. It will teach children about dynosaurs and other creatures, and it will also teach them to question Darwinism, which is not a bad thing.

Since this is one museum against the entire public school system, the courts, the universities, and all the other natural history museums in the country, it can do no more than teach children that there is more than one possible point of view about the origins of things.

the facts are plain and simple, and the creationists don't have any of them.

Sure we do...we have the exact same facts the secularist scientists have...the difference is our presuppositions.

A fossil is a fossil is a fossil. A bone is a bone is a bone

It is the interpretation of that fossil and the bone that separates the secularist from the creationist. And the interpretation is based on what we believe to be true of the world. The secularist assumes no supernatural intervention in history; the creationist assumes the supernatural to be part of the history of the universe

The secularist assumes everything happened by chance and natural selection; the creationist assumes God created the universe, and life on Earth, and that natural selection accounts for the vast speciation we see on Earth. The secularist assumes that pure matter can account for the vast amounts of information in the universe necessary for life; the creationist assumes an intelligent Creator implanted the vast amounts of information in the life that He created on this Earth.

We have the same facts...we just have a different interpretation of those facts.

24
posted on 05/26/2007 9:56:24 AM PDT
by LiteKeeper
(Beware the secularization of America; the Islamization of Eurabia)

If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe ...?

Yep. People I know who hate Christianity and everything associated with it usually give this kind of stuff as the reason.

On a related note, there's an interesting parable in the sci-fi TV series Gundam Seed: People are debating the desirability of creating a new, superior, genetically-engineered strain of humans. Various religions oppose this and use their influence to restrain it. But then the discovery of the fossilized remains of a "winged whale" on an asteroid near Jupiter blows the credibility of the churches, they lose their moral authority, the genetic engineering goes ahead full speed, and disaster follows.

The stakes are high. The museum argues that evolution jeopardizes people's belief in the Bible and leads to social ills like pornography and abortion.

That is indeed funny to me. I am afraid to say that I do not believe into the co-existance of dinosaurs and humans at the same time. As everybody here knows I have some reason to this assumption. Nevertheless I accept wide parts of the bible as reality. Even the Genesis has its justification to me if I see it in a wider coherence. But holding on to dates and details that can not be true does not make any sense. Evoloution happened. But it happened under the control of God. This is a very simple truth.

In Europe were I live we do not have this discussion. If someone doubts such proven scientific context on our continent he makes a complete clown of himself. Except of a handful extremely fundamentalistic Christians (whose mental health is regulary questioned from the official side) nobody in Europe (as I already said) is questioning evolution. We had this dispute when Darwin came out with his book in 1858. A comparable museum (even in staunch christian countries like Poland or Italy) would be a maximum joke. A funny Disneyland of creation.

It is extremely interesting that Americans feel so different about this issue. Is it possible that the resticted access to information (i.e. through homeschooling) of certain levels of the American population leaves many people unknowing?

Maybe they are wasted away over the last 5000 plus years, since the Flood.

There is no scientific evidence for a global flood.

What you don't seem to realize is that the last 5,000 years are quite well known. Archaeologists and soil scientists have been poking their noses into every nook and cranny of the earth for a couple of centuries.

There have been no dinosaur bones found in these sediments, nor has there been evidence found of a global flood.

You are mistaking your religious belief for scientific evidence, and refusing to see the massive amounts of evidence to the contrary.

It has been my experience that people who accept a literal interpretation of the Bible dont give any authority to the writings of Augustine or other Fathers of the Church."

Agreed. It is truly amazing - and sad - that so many fundamentalist Christians act as if the books of the Bible were originally written in English.

Obviously, no language can be literally translated 'word-for-word' into another language and still be understandable. I can go into a secular bookstore, or a Christian book store and choose from many versions - i.e. - translations - of the Bible printed in English.

Since I am a religious Jew who is respectful of, and interested in studying Christian Theology, could someone please tell me which one is the correct version - you know - the one that's infallible, etc.

At least with the Torah, it can be read in the language in which it was originally written.

It has been my experience that people who accept a literal interpretation of the Bible dont give any authority to the writings of Augustine or other Fathers of the Church.

The Fathers of the Church were the authors of books in the Bible.

Read "It Takes A Village" by one of Americas Fathers, Hillary Clinton. Hillary is less removed from the Founding Fathers of America than Augustine was from the Fathers of the Church.

What baffles me is when people ignore John, Matthew, Peter, Mark, Paul, James, Jude and Luke in order to agree with guys like Augustine. Augustine explained away a large percentage of the New Testament and sank the Catholic Church into A-Millennialism, basically dubbing the Apostle John a superstitious mystic with no grasp of reality.

One need only review the writings of Jeremiah, Ezekiel & Daniel (of which were viewed as overly superstitious by their contemporaries) and witness the literal fulfillment of their prophecies in the Person of Jesus Christ, to realize the mistake of explaining away passages.

As usual when dealing with Biblical truths, the mistake of trumping straightforward passages with "Modern Understandings" wreaks havoc on the lives of the trumpees. One word: Europe!

There is nothing new under the sun.

37
posted on 05/26/2007 11:26:36 AM PDT
by bondserv
(God governs our universe and has seen fit to offer us a pardon. †)

Your 'scienctists' had to make a change in the theory of evolution from gradual transitions to radical jumps, to explain the absence of any transtional forms in the fossils!

Where are the dinosaur bones? Maybe they are wasted away over the last 5000 plus years, since the Flood. There is no scientific evidence for a global flood. What you don't seem to realize is that the last 5,000 years are quite well known. Archaeologists and soil scientists have been poking their noses into every nook and cranny of the earth for a couple of centuries. There have been no dinosaur bones found in these sediments, nor has there been evidence found of a global flood. You are mistaking your religious belief for scientific evidence, and refusing to see the massive amounts of evidence to the contrary.

Save your phony 'science' line for someone else.

Evolution is one of the great fables in human history.

My next post has an article about finding actual dinosaur bones in the fossils.

38
posted on 05/26/2007 11:27:07 AM PDT
by fortheDeclaration
(We must beat the Democrats or the country will be ruined! -Abe Lincoln)

Dinosaur bonesjust how old are they really?
An evolutionary dinosaur expert reveals some fascinating facts!
by Carl Wieland

[Ed. note: In late 2005, a report in TJ provided an update on the scientific appraisal of some of the bones discussed in this article. See John H. Whitmore, Unfossilized Alaskan dinosaur bones? TJ 19(3):60.]

Most people think that fossil bones (of which the most well-known examples are those of dinosaurs) must be very, very oldbecause, after all, they have turned to stone, havent they?

Even millions of years might, to some, not even seem long enough to allow for natural processes to gradually, molecule by molecule, replace the original substance of the bone with rock minerals.

But this common picture is misleading. A recent book, co-authored by a world expert on dinosaurs, points out some things about dinosaur bones that are of great interest to creationists.1

For one thing, it says:

Bones do not have to be turned into stone to be fossils, and usually most of the original bone is still present in a dinosaur fossil.2

Ok, but even if the actual bone is not replaced by rock minerals, some fossil dinosaur bones are rock-hard, and show under the microscope when cut that they have been thoroughly permineralized. This means that rock minerals have been deposited into all the spaces within the original bone. Doesnt this show that the formation of these fossils, at least, must represent a long time? Think again. The same authoritative work also tells us:

The amount of time that it takes for a bone to become completely permineralized is highly variable. If the groundwater is heavily laden with minerals in solution, the process can happen rapidly. Modern bones that fall into mineral springs can become permineralized within a matter of weeks.

So even a rock-solid, hard shiny fossil dinosaur bone, showing under the microscope that all available spaces have been totally filled with rock minerals, does not indicate that it necessarily took millions of years to form at all.

Now of course if a dinosaur bone is indeed permineralized, it would give it great protection from the normal processes which cause things such as bone to just naturally fall apart. So a permineralized bone might indeed be anything from a few weeks to millions of years old.

However, in a situation where the dinosaur bone has been prevented from being invaded by mineral-rich water, one would expect that over millions of years, even locked away from all bacterial agents, dinosaur bone would, in obeying the laws of thermodynamics,3 just disintegrate from the random motions of the molecules therein.

There are actually instances, mentioned in the same book, in which dinosaur bones in Alberta, Canada, were encased in ironstone nodules shortly after being buried. We are told:

The nodules prevented water from invading the bones, which for all intents and purposes cannot be distinguished from modern bone.4
This is a stunning revelation. Evolutionists are convinced that all dinosaur bones must be at least 65 million years old. Those who take Genesis as real history would predict that no dinosaur bone is more than a few thousand years old, so the existence of such totally unmineralized dinosaur bones that have not disintegrated is perfectly consistent with our expectations.

We have previously told you about the unfossilized dinosaur bone which still contained red blood cells and hemoglobin.5 Also, we wrote about fresh dinosaur bones in Alaska.6 Let the evolutionist experts writing this book confirm this:

An even more spectacular example was found on the North Shore of Alaska, where many thousands of bones lack any significant degree of permineralization. The bones look and feel like old cow bones, and the discoverers of the site did not report it for twenty years because they assumed they were bison, not dinosaur, bones.

In summary, therefore:

Most fossil dinosaur bones still contain the original bone.

Even when heavily permineralized (fossilized), this does not need to require more than a few weeks. The Creation/Flood scenario for fossilization would allow many centuries for such permineralization to occur, even under less than ideal conditions.

Where bones have not been protected by permineralization, they are sometimes found in a condition which to all intents and purpose looks as if they are at most centuries, not millions of years old.

The Bibles account of the true history of the world makes it clear that no fossil can be more than a few thousand years old. Dinosaur bones give evidence strongly consistent with this.

For whatever it’s worth, I went to a conservative Christian college (Grove City), and one of the science professors there gave a very cogent presentation on this topic. The gist of it was that no honest examination of the evidence points to a so-called “young earth,” a literal six-day creation or the coexistence of humans and dinosaurs.

This was a very smart man, a devout Christian and an all-around nice guy, but I remember the annoyance and embarrassment in his voice when he spoke of some of the more contrived “theories” hatched to reconcile scientific evidence with biblical literalism: for instance, the notion that God created the earth and its geological formations to “appear” billions of years old. My prof said essentially that the God Christians believe in does not aim to deceive and that a notion like this is an insult to everyone’s intelligence.

I’m not scientist myself (far from it), so this is just my prof’s two cents.

Tiktaalik to the rescue?
In the April 2006, issue of Nature, Daeschler, et al. reported the discovery of several fossilized specimens of a Crossopterygian fish named Tiktaalik roseae. These well preserved specimens were found in sedimentary layers of siltstonecross-bedded with sandstonesin Artic Canada.4

Like the other lobe-fin fish, Tiktaalik was declared to be late Devonian (between 385-359 million years old) by means of a dating method known as palynomorph biostratigraphy. This method presumes to date sedimentary rock layers on the basis of the assumed evolutionary age of pollen and spores contained in the rock. Most importantly, the discoverers of Tiktaalik claim that it represents an intermediate between fish with fins and tetrapods with limbs.

Tiktaalik is a fish
Whatever else we might say about Tiktaalik, it is a fish. In a review article on Tiktaalik (appearing in the same issue of the scientific journal Nature that reported the discovery of Tiktaalik), fish evolution experts, Ahlberg and Clack concede that in some respects Tiktaalik and Panderichthys are straightforward fishes: they have small pelvic fins, retain fin rays in their paired appendages and have well-developed gill arches, suggesting that both animals remained mostly aquatic. 5

In other respects, however, Ahlberg and Clack argue that Tiktaalik is more tetrapod-like than Panderichthys because the bony gill cover has disappeared, and the skull has a longer snout. The authors weakly suggest that the significance of all this is that a longer snout suggests a shift from sucking towards snapping up prey, whereas the loss of gill cover bones probably correlates with reduced water flow through the gill chamber. The ribs also seem larger in Tiktaalik, which may mean it was better able to support its body out of water.

Without the authors evolutionary bias, of course, there is no reason to assume that Tiktaalik was anything other than exclusively aquatic. And how do we know that Tiktaalik lost its gill cover as opposed to never having one? The longer snout and lack of bony gill covers (found in many other exclusively-aquatic living fish) are interpreted as indicating a reduced flow of water through the gills, which, in turn, is declared to be suggestive of partial air-breathingbut this is quite a stretch. Finally, what does any of this have to do with fish evolving into land dwelling tetrapods?

Are the pectoral fins of Tiktaalik really legs?
Before we get into Tiktaaliks legs, it might be instructive to consider an old trick question. If we call our arms legs, then how many legs would we have? The answer, of course, is two legsjust because we call our arms legs doesnt make them legs. The same might be said of the bony fins of Crossopterygian fishwe may call them legs but that doesnt necessarily make them legs.

Shubin et al. make much of the claim that Tiktaaliks bony fins show a reduction in dermal bone and an increase in endochondral bone.6 This is important to them because the limb bones of tetrapods are entirely endochondral. They further claim that the cleithrum (a dermal bone to which the pectoral fin is attached in fish) is detached from the skull, resembling the position of the scapula (shoulder blade) of a tetrapod. They also claim that the endochondral bones of the fin are more similar to those of a tetrapod in terms of structure and range of motion. However, none of this, if true, proves that Tiktaaliks fins supported its weight out of water, or that it was capable of a true walking motion. (It certainly doesnt prove that these fish evolved into tetrapods.)

Obviously, no language can be literally translated 'word-for-word' into another language and still be understandable.

Someone has duped you in to believing that you are incapable of studying for yourself. As if all books that were translated from another language cannot be understood by someone who doesn't speak the original language.

This was a tactic that was perpetuated by the Catholic Church during the Dark Ages, and which also makes the Reformation such a monumental turning point in Church history. Luther's finest contribution to mankind was his desire to get the Word of God into the individuals hands, and was the impetus for the migration of some of the brightest minds in Europe to flee the Catholic Church to America.

That is not to say that a person who choose a mans opinion over straightforward scriptures cannot be a believer. It just means that they are going to be injured along the way as God drags their resisting lives to the destination of his choosing, rather than walking alongside God enjoying a rich relationship.

44
posted on 05/26/2007 11:59:32 AM PDT
by bondserv
(God governs our universe and has seen fit to offer us a pardon. †)

These Alaskan dinosaur bones are in soils dating within the last 5000 years? Or encased in rock dating many millions of years old? Makes a difference, you know.

It is you that is saying that the soil is that old, not us.

But even if that old, there is a Creationist view that can account for an Old Universe, but a recent creation-the Gap theory.

The Bibles account of the true history of the world makes it clear that no fossil can be more than a few thousand years old. That is not scientific evidence. Science shows an old earth, dinosaurs not co-existing with humans, and no flood. You can dissemble all you want, it won't change a thing.

Ofcourse it won't change anything because you do not want to know the truth.

You want to believe the lie.

I gave you existent dinosaur bones, something you said couldn't exist.

45
posted on 05/26/2007 12:02:21 PM PDT
by fortheDeclaration
(We must beat the Democrats or the country will be ruined! -Abe Lincoln)

I gave you existent dinosaur bones, something you said couldn't exist.

True. I was not aware of those. But the article does not support your idea that they are of the same age as humans (ca. 5000 years). And this article shows they are about 69.1 ± 0.3 million years old. It also shows that:

Microbeam PIXE has revealed that calcium and phosphorus are at reasonably expected concentrations in the analyzed dinosaur bone samples. However, significant amounts of iron, zinc, manganese, barium and strontium have been observed to be distributed throughout all dinosaur bone thin sections analyzed. Concentrations of many of these elements are at least an order of magnitude higher than those in modern reptilian and mammalian bones [emphasis added].

Obviously, no language can be literally translated 'word-for-word' into another language and still be understandable. I can go into a secular bookstore, or a Christian book store and choose from many versions - i.e. - translations - of the Bible printed in English.

Since I am a religious Jew who is respectful of, and interested in studying Christian Theology, could someone please tell me which one is the correct version - you know - the one that's infallible, etc.At least with the Torah, it can be read in the language in which it was originally written.

The problem is, unless the symbols within any given language, each have one, and only one meaning, then you face the same logical problem within the system, that you do between the systems.

That said, you can take your hint of sarcasm and shove it up your ass.

"Obviously, no language can be literally translated 'word-for-word' into another language and still be understandable."

Someone has duped you in to believing that you are incapable of studying for yourself. As if all books that were translated from another language cannot be understood.

Thanks for clearing that up. I was not aware that I was incapable of independent study.

Rather than take the time to learn Ancient Greek, Latin and all other ancient languages that the books of the Bible were written in (as you obviously must have done since you have not been 'duped'), I was just asking for advice in the interest of saving time..

So I guess all English translations of the Bible are the correct translations even though they differ greatly.

Once again, thanks for the info.

P.S. If you read a secular book such as Dostoyevsky's works in the original Russian, or even a good French translation, it will be much more detailed and descriptive than most English versions. The basic story is the same, but there are SIGNIFICANT NUANCES between different translations.

Are you denying the differences in the various English translations of the Bible? Or are you saying that even though they disagree with each other, they all have equal validity?

Oh, that’s right, you guys like to start with everything already existing and just ‘evolving’.

Nope. Scientists don’t make unwarranted assumptions. Science is still looking for the answer of creation. They don’t believe it will be found in ancient fables though. They keep an open mind about such things. I guess that’s why religion appeals to so many. Someones scribblings can be declared the final word on a subject and no further analysis needs to be applied.

50
posted on 05/26/2007 1:55:51 PM PDT
by saganite
(Billions and billions and billions----and that's just the NASA budget!)

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